CLUB CALL

Well, be­lieve it or not, we still have ac­tion on the play­ing field go­ing on, here we are at the tail end of June and still some teams are try­ing to com­plete their sea­son.

On Thurs­day night our Un­der-11 Green team went down 5-3 to New­town Ju­niors in a Premier Shield play-off game for the right to play St An­thony’s in the fi­nal.

Af­ter the game fin­ished in an ex­cit­ing 3-3 draw it was onto ex­tra-time where New­town scored two with­out re­ply.

The lads put it up to league cham­pi­ons New­town in a game that could have went ei­ther way. Os­car Mal­com­son, Louis Mal­com­son and Jack Noble were the Rovers marks­men on the night.

The lads gave it their all against a very good New­town side. Hard luck to Gerry and the lads.

Sun­day saw our Un­der-16Bs play Grey­stones Utd in the fi­nal of the Di­vi­sion 1 Shield. Our Un­der-16Bs are play­ing a year above their nat­u­ral age group and have had a fan­tas­tic sea­son. Af­ter fin­ish­ing third in the Premier league they then claimed run­ners up in the Premier Cup against their club mates the ‘A’ team.

Sun­day saw them cap off a ter­rific cam­paign when they won the shield, de­feat­ing Grey­stones 4-2. Top scorer Daniel Fitzsi­mons fired home two goals with Sean Leonard and Luke Whyte notch­ing one a piece.

The lads were al­ways in con­trol of the game rac­ing into a 2-0 with goals from Fitzsi­mons and Whyte, af­ter the break they went 3-0 up when Leonard fired home.

Grey­stones pulled one back but Fitzsi­mons made sure there was no come­back on the cards when he nabbed his 35th of the sea­son and Rovers fourth to kill off the game.

Grey­stones did get a sec­ond but Rovers ran out de­served win­ners. Con­grat­u­la­tions to John, Matt and the lads on a very suc­cess­ful sea­son.

The club are cur­rently invit­ing ap­pli­cants for the fol­low­ing man­age­rial po­si­tions within the club for the 2016/17 sea­son: 1. Le­in­ster Se­nior First Team; 2. Le­in­ster Se­nior Sec­ond Team; 3. Un­der 18 Team. Any­one in­ter­ested in the above po­si­tions should con­tact club sec­re­tary Rob Free for an ap­pli­ca­tion form at 0858153424 or by email at robfreemax@ gmail.com Clos­ing dates for the above ap­pli­ca­tions is Fri­day, July 1.

The dates for our an­nual sum­mer soc­cer camp are week 1 from Mon­day, July 4 to Fri­day, July 8, week 2 from Mon­day, July 11 to Fri­day, July 15. The camps will run from 10 am to 3 pm daily, each par­tic­i­pant will re­ceive a jersey, ball and a medal. The cost of the camp is €65 with dis­count for a fam­ily with two or more kids. There will also be a girls only sec­tion in the camp. All par­tic­i­pants should bring a packed lunch, a drink, boots, shin guards and a rain jacket. Any­one in­ter­ested in tak­ing part should con­tact Johnny Dunne at 087-7802098 or Willie O’Brien at 086-1696911. Al­ter­na­tively you can con­tact any com­mit­tee mem­ber or mes­sage the club Face­book page. Reg­is­tra­tion forms can be down­loaded from the club web­site at www.wick­lowrovers.com There is a reg­is­tra­tion day this com­ing Satur­day morn­ing, June 25, in the club­house from 11 till 12.

The dates have been re­leased for the club’s open train­ing ses­sions and tri­als for all our ju­nior teams for the 2016/17 sea­son. All open train­ing ses­sions and tri­als will take place in the White­gates from 7pm till 8pm. The dates are as fol­lows: Un­der-8s (Born 2009/10) are on Mon­day, July 11; Un­der-9s (Born 2008) are on Mon­day, July 11; Un­der-10s (Born 2007) are on Tues­day, July 12; Un­der-11s (Born 2006) are on Wed­nes­day, July 13; Un­der-12s (Born 2005) are on Thurs­day, July 14; Un­der-13s (Born 2004) are on Frida, July 15; Un­der-14s (Born 2003) are on Fri­day, July 22; Un­der-15s (Born 2002) are on Wed­nes­day, July 20, and Un­der-16s (Born 2001) are on Thurs­day, July 21. If any player is away on hol­i­days while the above ses­sions are tak­ing place please in­form any com­mit­tee mem­ber.

The club’s weekly ju­nior soc­cer acad­emy con­tin­ues ev­ery Satur­day morn­ing (weather per­mit­ting) un­der the watch­ful eye of se­nior club coaches Johnny Dunne and Rob­bie Dover. The acad­emy takes places on the all weather pitch on the club grounds at the White­gates and is open to all kids from the age of three years to eight years.

The acad­emy starts at 11am and fin­ishes at 12. There is no need for reg­is­tra­tion so you can come along to any week that suits. Come along and learn the skills of foot­ball while hav­ing fun and en­joy­ment, it’s a great way of meet­ing new friends as you learn the skills as you get pre­pared for the in­tro­duc­tion to par­tic­i­pate in or­gan­ised league foot­ball in the com­ing years.

IN­DOOR BOWLS

Kil­dare West Wick­low In­door Bowl­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (KWWIBA)

Ard­clough Mixed Triples Tour­na­ment Fi­nals

The re­cent Ard­clough Mixed Triples bowl­ing tour­na­ment fi­nals played in the Ard­clough GAA Hall drew a large at­ten­dance to the event. In the Cup fi­nal it was Kil­dare Town against Allen, while the Shield fi­nal was con­tested be­tween two Rath­more teams. Shield Fi­nal The Shield fi­nal was the first to roll off, with Rath­more 2 against Rath­more 3. With top play­ers in both teams there was never go­ing to be much be­tween ei­ther team.

Rath­more 2 started off in fine fash­ion and pulled off five scores in the first two ends. On the third end Rath­more 3 got them­selves on the score­board to re­duce the mar­gin to four. But again their op­po­nents in­creased the lead to five. On the next end it was back to four again and we were left won­der­ing if the good start was go­ing to be the de­cid­ing fac­tor at the fin­ish, even though we were only at the sixth end.

On the next end when Rath­more 2 moved ahead by seven it looked liked too big a climb for Rath­more 3 at this point, es­pe­cially as they were get­ting it very dif­fi­cult to come to term with the mat, and the tight match we were ex­pect­ing just didn’t seem to be ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing.

On the next three ends Rath­more 3 hit a pur­ple patch and nar­rowed the gap to three. But as be­fore Rath­more 2 again stretched their lead out to five. Rath­more 3 were now play­ing with the type of form that was ex­pected and within the next three ends were on level terms.

On the sec­ond last end Rath­more 3 had in­cred­i­bly taken the lead for the first time in the match al­beit only by a score of one. So it was re­ally down to a shoot out in the last end.

Could Rath­more 3 pull off a Hou­dini act or could their coun­ter­parts once more get the nec­es­sary scores when they were most needed? Well! Af­ter a hec­tic 15th and fi­nal end Rath­more 2 just scraped over the line on a win­ning mar­gin of 13 against 12.

Although Rath­more 2 were the bet­ter side through­out and thor­oughly de­served their victory they can count them­selves lucky to edge it at the fin­ish.

Rath­more 2: Joe Wat­ters, Mary Brady and Bernie McIn­tyre.

Rath­more 3: Dave Pitt, Ann Shaw and Frank Feane. Cup Fi­nal Kil­dare 2 v Allen 2: This Kil­dare team were the firm favourites to win this match although they were com­ing up against a very good Allen team.

Allen had a great and con­fi­dent start scor­ing three on the first end, which helped them to set­tle into the game quickly. But it didn’t take long for Kil­dare to be back in con­tention and by the third end they had drawn level.

On the fourth end Kil­dare took the lead and from thereon set the pace of the game. On the tenth end they had in­creased the gap to six, but Allen fought back on the next cou­ple of ends to leave only three be­tween them.

But it was from here that the game started to slip away from the Allen side, as Kil­dare con­tin­ued to score and in­crease their ad­van­tage. In fair­ness to Allen they were only con­ced­ing low scores to Kil­dare, but not be­ing able to reg­is­ter any scores the mar­gin nat­u­rally be­gan to widen, and thus left it beyond any chance of a come­back.

The score­board at the fin­ish cer­tainly didn’t do justice, to what was a good game of bowls. The fact that Kil­dare were only get­ting a score of one or two on each oc­ca­sion was al­ways go­ing to be enough to win the game, es­pe­cially when their op­po­nents only man­aged to score on four oc­ca­sions in the match. Kil­dare the win­ners on a 19/8 score line.

Kil­dare: Anne Glee­son, John Glee­son and Mark Cald­well.

Allen: Kevin McCor­mack, De­nis Lyons and Ann McCor­mack.

Well done to Ard­clough Bowl­ing Club for a well run and or­gan­ised tour­na­ment, and thanks to all the vol­un­teers for their hard work be­fore and dur­ing the event.

And of course a spe­cial thanks to the cater­ers with the most dif­fi­cult task of all, in pro­vid­ing the re­fresh­ments to such large crowds through­out the tour­na­ment.

AVON­MORE FC

Avon­more Un­der-15s v Dublin Oaks (Shield fi­nal) - Right from the tip off this game had a bat­tle writ­ten all over it. Th­ese two teams had met in pre­vi­ous matches and knew ex­actly what to ex­pect from each other.

Dublin oaks hadn’t been beaten in this com­pe­ti­tion at all and Avon­more had to come through two must win games to reach the fi­nal.

Both teams started with huge de­ter­mi­na­tion, but it was Avon­more who scored first with an ex­cel­lent chip over the goal keeper from our for­ward, Dean Carter.

Dublin Oaks upped the pres­sure and Avon­more found them­selves de­fend­ing, and de­fend­ing well, with great play from Luke Kear­ney, Ryan Kenny and Kevin Kin­sella, for the last 15 min­utes of the match.

They were then awarded a penalty which they quickly took and scored. Game on. Mark Cullen was then taken down in the box in the dy­ing min­utes of the game.

Un­for­tu­nately for us the Dublin Oaks goal­keeper saved it. This game was go­ing to ex­tra time.

With the team spirit a bit low af­ter the penalty miss, the man­agers ral­lied their team and, within min­utes of ex­tra time start­ing, Avon­more scored their sec­ond goal through a beau­ti­ful pas­sage of play be­tween Mark Cullen, Dean Carter, and Dale Fluskey who tucked the ball sweetly in the back of the Dublin Oaks net.

The Avon­more sup­port­ers went wild, but there was still an­other 10 min­utes to play.

Liam Dick­en­son, Ayyub Az­mat and Cody Reid who came on for Ayuub worked like Tro­jans for their team and Dublin Oaks were find­ing it in­creas­ingly frus­trat­ing to get passed our play­ers. With sec­onds to go the ref­eree awarded Dublin Oaks an­other penalty much to the agony of our sup­port­ers. Every­one on the Avon­more side­line were cross­ing fin­gers and say­ing prayers that Ai­dan Mur­ray in goal would con­tinue his great game and save it, to en­sure a win for Avon­more, and that’s ex­actly what he did. What a save! Avon­more FC are Shield cham­pi­ons.

Thanks to Dublin Oaks for a great game. Well done to this great Un­der-15s Avon­more team and man­agers. A much de­served win.

BRAY WAN­DER­ERS

Bray Wan­der­ers Lotto - There was no win­ner of Bray Wan­der­ers lotto on Sun­day, June 19.

Sligo away - Our next away trip will be on Fri­day, June 24, to Sligo Rovers. The sup­port­ers club will run a bus to this game. Seats can be booked by text to 087 9968969. Bus de­parts 2pm from the Carlisle Grounds.

Fares for Sup­port­ers Club mem­bers are: Adults €20, 16 -18 year olds €15, Schoolchild €10, Non-mem­bers €5 ex­tra. This game has been moved from Satur­day the 25th due to the Euro­pean Cham­pi­onships.

Fix­ture news - Bray Wan­der­ers will host Scot­tish Cham­pi­onship side Falkirk at the Carlisle Grounds on Wed­nes­day, June 29, kick off 7.45pm.

NEW­TOWN JU­NIORS

It was the Un­der-11s who brought the cur­tain down on an­other rel­a­tively suc­cess­ful; sea­son when they were in Shield ac­tion the past week.

Tues­day night’s play for a place in the fi­nal failed to take place af­ter a mix up over ar­range­ments at the venue in Rath­new. The game with Wick­low Rovers went ahead two days later on Thurs­day when the teams did duel in Kil­coole.

Rovers took an early lead but New­town hit back and led 3-1 at half time thanks to goals from Ma­son Melia (2) and Ryan McMa­hon.

New­town sat back some­what in the sec­ond half and al­lowed Rovers a lot of the ball. Even­tu­ally the pres­sure told and Rovers scored twice, the equaliser with vir­tu­ally the last kick of the game.

The New­town team re­fo­cused in the sec­ond half and Melia scored a goal in each pe­riod of ex­tra time to send New­town the fi­nal on a 5-3 score line.

It was then onto Satur­day and Round­wood where the team took on St. An­thony’s in the fi­nal.

An­tos raced into an early 2-0 lead and de­spite creat­ing a cou­ple of good chances it was just be­fore half-time when they score when Ryan McMa­hon set up Ma­son Melia to score from close range.

The one thing the New­town team didn’t want to hap­pen in the sec­ond half was to con­cede an early goal but this is what hap­pened af­ter too much mess­ing about in the back line.

The game was now end to end but un­for­tu­nately for us when we at­tacked the ball wouldn’t go in the goal but Anto’s scored two more goals from their at­tacks.

We did score a late con­so­la­tion when Shane Syn­nott scored to leave the fi­nal score at 5-2.

On the day the bet­ter team won but hard luck to our team that in­cluded Ryan Clarke, Shane Syn­nott, Mar­cel Ko­ca­jda, Martin Kelly, Dar­ragh Hef­fer­nan, Jack Cough­lan, Bog­dan Rusu, Ma­son Melia, Ryan McMa­hon, Grace Mur­phy and Oran Lane. Also well done to the man­age­ment team of Liam and Mick and many thanks to all the sup­port­ers.

The team headed off to Dublin af­ter­wards for some Bub­ble Foot­ball and food etc. and all the team had a great time. Well done, every­one.

We have started our EURO 2016 Last Man Stand­ing com­pe­ti­tion and fix­tures over six rounds from June 10-22 will de­ter­mine who makes it through to Round 7 (if any). 107 play­ers started out in the com­pe­ti­tion and en­ter­ing Round 4 we had 46 play­ers still stand­ing. You can fol­low the com­pe­ti­tion on our Face­book and Twit­ter pages and if you need any in­for­ma­tion re­gards this or any other mat­ter please con­tact our sec­re­tary by mo­bile to 087 6987653 or by email to hughienolan@gmail.com. Our win­ner will re­ceive the prize pot of €535. Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port.

We also have spon­sor cards out at present for a fundraiser which will take place at our Pre­sen­ta­tion Day on Satur­day, July 2, and all play­ers in the club should have re­ceived their cards by now. If not con­tact any com­mit­tee mem­ber and they will duly get one to you.

The spon­sor card en­ables the hold­ers to get var­i­ous sport gear de­pend­ing on how much each player ac­cu­mu­lates. We hope to have lots of fun ac­tiv­i­ties at the Pre­sen­ta­tion Day and if there is any­body who would like to vol­un­teer their help on the day it would be very much ap­pre­ci­ated. (More de­tails of spon­sored card event on our Face­book and Twit­ter pages)

Train­ing for the De­vel­op­ment Squad is on Satur­day from 11am-12pm. All ses­sions are €2 per head. New play­ers (boys and girls) are al­ways wel­come and you can con­tact the sec­re­tary for fur­ther de­tails at 087 6987653.

We have six play­ers from the club cel­e­brat­ing their birth­days around this time and they are Ben Syn­nott and Lu­cas Dow­dall from the De­vel­op­ment Squad, Eoghan Fox (U-10), Leon Hughes (U12), Sarah Evans (U-15 girls) and Medb O’Keane (ladies).

Happy birth­day to all from every­one at New­town Ju­niors F.C.

For all mat­ters re­gards the club you can con­tact the sec­re­tary, Hughie, at 087 6987653 or by email at hughienolan@ gmail.com.

No joy for Cool­boy Rangers who were de­feated 3-2 by Wick­low Rovers B in the Un­der-13 Premier Shield fi­nal in Round­wood on Mon­day night. The game finnished 2-2 but a late in­jury-time goal from Ben Free de­cided the mat­ter. Photo: Bar­bara Flynn